Apple Announces the iPhone SE

Apple has finally announced the much hyped iPhone SE at an event held today in the United States. Along with the announcement of the new iPhone, Apple has also announced that the update to iOS 9.3 would start rolling out today, which brings with it a Night Shift for making reading at night a bliss and support for Touch ID to lock away your Notes. You can download iOS 9.3 on your existing iPhones, and if you do not have one, you can perhaps pick the iPhone SE which comes with iOS 9.3 out of the box.

The iPhone SE is Apple’s yet another attempt at cracking the midrange budget market. It is a phone that comfortably sits in between the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 6. It brings the 4-inch screen form factor of the iPhone 5s and couples it with a rounded and two metal tone design language of the iPhonei 5s. Unlike the iPhone 5c, Apple’s previous attempt at making a budget iPhone, the iPhone SE comes with a metallic body.

The phone features that Apple A9 chipset and comes with a bumper 12 MP camera. There is a Touch ID in there for security, though there is no 3D Touch here. Despite 3D Touch missing out, Apple has included Live Photos, a feature that is available only on the iPhone 6s. This begs the question that if Live images can be enabled on Non-3D Touch panels, shouldn’t all the iPhones be getting it too?

The iPhone SE will be available in four colors, same as that of the iPhone 6s: space grey, silver, gold and rose gold. The memory variants will remain 16GB and 64 GB GB. The phone will support a host of LTE bands as well as Apple Pay. You can pick the phone at $399 for the 16 GB version starting from March 31st, when it goes on sale in the United States with global rollout shortly afterwards. In India, the iPhone SE is expected to be launched towards the end of May.